Hampton Sides, Ghost Soldiers: The Forgotten
Epic Story of World War II's Most Dramatic Mission
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Hardcover - 336 pages 1 Ed edition (May 15, 2001)
Doubleday; ISBN: 0385495641 ; Dimensions (in inches): 1.24 x 9.63
x 6.54
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On January 28, 1945, 121 hand-selected
troops from the elite U.S. Army 6th Ranger Battalion slipped behind
enemy lines in the Philippines. Their mission: March thirty miles
in an attempt to rescue 513 American and British POWs who had
spent three years in a surreally hellish camp near the city of
Cabanatuan. The prisoners included the last survivors of the Bataan
Death March left in the camp, and their extraordinary will to
live might soon count for nothing—elsewhere in the Philippines,
the Japanese Army had already executed American prisoners as it
retreated from the advancing U.S. Army. As the Rangers stealthily
moved through enemy-occupied territory, they learned that Cabanatuan
had become a major transshipment point for the Japanese retreat,
and instead of facing the few dozen prison guards, they could
possibly confront as many as 8,000 battle-hardened enemy troops.
Hampton Sides's vivid minute-by-minute
narration of the raid and his chronicle of the prisoners' wrenching
experiences are masterful. But Ghost Soldiers is far more than
a thrilling battle saga. Hampton Sides explores the mystery of
human behavior under extreme duress—the resilience of the
prisoners, who defied the Japanese authorities even as they endured
starvation, tropical diseases, and unspeakable tortures; the violent
cultural clashes with Japanese guards and soldiers steeped in
the warrior ethic of Bushido; the remarkable heroism of the Rangers
and Filipino guerrillas; the complex motivations of the U.S. high
command, some of whom could justly be charged with abandoning
the men of Bataan in 1942; and the nearly suicidal bravado of
several spies, including priests and a cabaret owner, who risked
their lives to help the prisoners during their long ordeal.
At once a gripping depiction of men at
war and a compelling story of redemption, Ghost Soldiers joins
such landmark books as Flags of Our Fathers, The Greatest Generation,
The Rape of Nanking, and D-Day in preserving the legacy of World
War II for future generations.
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